More All-Women Dinners: No Grocery Shopping, Just Using up What We Had in the House

Monday night was our last all-women dinner at our house. My husband will be home later today.

Because this was our vacation weekend, too, we decided that we would make meals simpler. My daughter who is house-sitting came over for dinner each night, making three of us every evening.

How we simplified our meals:

• doubled the amounts prepared on a few foods, so we could use leftovers (meatloaf, celery soup). On a couple of occasions we made extras at lunch to serve with dinner (carrot sticks, apple wedges).
• cooking/prep shortcuts -- used frozen or canned vegetables, simply steamed, as much as possible. No washing or chopping when using canned and frozen veggies. Boxed instant mashed potatoes are quickly prepared in the microwave, no peeling potatoes or time spent mashing.
• used whole fresh fruit as part of sides for meals. No need to prep fruit like whole tangerines.
• chose a couple of quick and easy main dishes -- pizza sandwiches, using frozen pizza sauce, and scrambled eggs
• we shared in the work for every dinner, each making at least one of the meal items or taking on serving and table setting
• we each washed our own dishes after dinner. I washed the food prep pots/pans/bowls, my daughters dried and put away.

It was easy cooking. No one felt they were doing very much. We came up with menus a day or two in advance and were able to make some items (meatloaf, carrot-raisin salad) early in the day to make evenings easier.

I did zero extra grocery shopping for these days. In fact, I haven't been to the grocery store in 2 1/2 weeks. Grocery shopping sounded like work to me, and I didn't want to do extra work over this long weekend. Instead, we replied on surpluses of foods we had. I thawed frozen milk, we used the last of the fresh fruit we had on hand, used pantry staples such as raisins, instant mashed potatoes and my surplus of uncooked rice, and we made do when frozen, canned and fresh veggies became more limited -- lots of carrot sticks this week. When I felt like I wanted a little something sweet one evening after dinner, I made myself a mug cake in the microwave. We also enjoyed cinnamon toast a few times -- a quick and tasty sweet treat.

Here's what we had each night.

Friday
pepperoni pizza sandwiches on whole wheat bread (I made)

steamed frozen broccoli (daughter 1 made)

carrot sticks (daughter 2 made)

tangerines

Saturday
meatloaf (I made)
instant mashed potatoes (daughter 1 made)

carrot-raisin salad (daughter 1 made)
cream of celery soup, using frozen celery from last year's garden (daughter 2 made)

Sunday
open-face meatloaf sandwiches on homemade whole wheat bread, covered in ketchup and sliced dill pickles (I and daughter 1 made)
steamed frozen mixed vegetables (daughter 2 made)

leftover cream of celery soup

Monday
scrambled eggs and cheddar (I made)
steamed rice (I made, daughter 2 served)
canned green beans (I made, daughter 1 served)
leftover carrot sticks, apple wedges, and tangerines (from lunch)

And now I have to make a regular dinner for tonight when there are four of us once again. I think I'll make a pot of beef stew, homemade biscuits, rhubarb jello, and cabbage slaw. Back to cooking for me. It's been a nice break, and I feel recharged for my regular household chores.